


a truce

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Happy Ending, Modern Era, Sort of Happy, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Swimming, idk if you're uncomfortable with ambiguity maybe don't read, reasonably happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:35:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27165322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: (a soulmark AU)
Relationships: Brienne of Tarth & Selwyn Tarth, Jaime Lannister & Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 19
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

"Jaime Lannister is staring at you."

"Who?"

"Don't _look,_ " said Margaery, but it was too late; Brienne had already turned.

And he _was_ staring at her.

A flush crawled up Brienne's face. She knew she was too big, she knew was too ugly, she knew she wouldn't ever fit in with the other slim, silky girls on the team, all confidence, blonde hair done up in long ponytails that somehow never seemed to go brittle or turn green no matter how long they were in the pool, and she knew for a fact that Lyanna at least got her color from a bottle -- she knew all that already. He didn't need to tell her.

She also knew that she was the best swimmer on the girl's team and could beat most of the boys, too. In the pool, her height became length, and an extra few inches of arm and leg could gain the win even if she wasn't the strongest, fastest, best.

So she raised her chin and looked back, meeting scorn with boldness --

Except that he wasn't scornful, was he? She couldn't read his face but it didn't look like that. Surprise, sure. Confusion. Disbelief.

Their eyes met and he turned away.

The meet started after that and she focused on movement, calmness, sureity. She made time and hoisted herself out of the pool before the last straggler came in -- and saw again that he was watching her, brows pulled together in a frown.

So she tried Sansa. "What's Lannister's problem, anyway?"

The redhead was reapplying mascara, her mouth a softly perfect 0. She did not alter her focus.

"What do you mean?"

"He was ..." She shook her head; she couldn't say it out loud. No one would believe someone who looked like that would look at someone like Brienne. "Nothing."

  
*

  
They got older. They went to different schools and ran in different circles, and if she saw him again now and then at the pools he treated her the same as he treated anyone else -- with slightly amused irreverance, as if he knew a secret.

Brienne forgot to wonder about him. She met other boys, pretty boys and ugly boys, boys who lied to her to win a kiss and laugh about it with their mates, boys who smiled at her but pushed her away, gently, when she leaned in during a film -- "Brie, I'm queer."

"Oh," said Brienne, trying to be blase while her eyes stung with tears. "Oh, it's fine."

"I thought you knew that."

"Sorry."

"Did -- did you think this was a date?"

"No," she said.

"Yeah," said Renly. "Okay. I ... I'll be right back." He edged out of the cramped seats, apologizing to the other movie-goers, and disappeared.

Brienne sat in the dark and tried to watch the screen. _He was just going to pee_ , she told herself. _He left his drink. He'll come back in a moment and sit down and we can ignore all this._

She stayed until the credits ran out and the theatre was empty, pretending she was doing something really interesting on her phone, but Renly didn't come back.

  
*

  
"Jaime Lannister," said Selwyn. "Didn't you go to school with him for a while?"

"What?"

And there he was, in one of those awful outside-the-courtroom pap shots. Even with the grainy photograph, even with his hand raised up to cover his face, he still looked beautiful and aloof.  
She couldn't believe it was really him. The words of the article blurred. "What the hell did he do?"

"Murder," said her father.

"Gods." She brushed her finger over the paper, over the image. "Do you think he did it?"

"Rich kid like that? No question."

Brienne didn't reply.

"His lawyer is pleading insanity, though. Says that he had a temporary moment of ... Are you alright, sweetheart? Did you know him well?"

Her thumb was grey with ink. She rubbed it against the rough surface of her jeans. "It's hard to imagine someone my age in jail," she said. Murder. He could be in there for twenty years, thirty years. The rest of his life or the rest of hers?

She remembered his clear gaze, the confusion and determination on his face. Where was that child now?

"He'll get off," said Selwyn again. "Lannisters don't go to jail" -- and he was right.

  
*

  
People talked.

People had always talked about Jaime, but now she was starting to listen to it. _Do you think he,_ said the whispers, and _I heard he turned Hildy down flat_ , and _Maybe he plays for the other team._ None of it mattered. They hadn't spoken in -- how long? Years. Five or six or more. She saw herself, a gangly teenager, all knees and elbows and the regulation red swimsuit. No wonder he'd stared.

It didn't matter. Brienne applied to university on a scholarship and got an apartment-with-roommates close to campus and put it out of her mind so thoroughly that when she showed up to the pool for her five-a.m. time slot, she did not even consider that the man doing laps might be someone she knew.

And when she finished, --

"Do I know you?" he said.

"No," said Brienne, deliberately rude. She was shaking water out of her ear. The swim cap never quite sat right on that side ...

"You're Brienne Tarth. You went to Kings Landing with me."

And then she had to look up.

Gods above, he even more attractive now than he had been in the trial -- or maybe it was that he was wearing fewer clothes. _Should have worn a Speedo to the courtroom,_ her traitorous mind whispered.

Maybe some of that showed on her face, because Jaime smiled. It was lopsided, it was confident, it was charming: it made her sick.

He said, "I was wondering if you'd want to --"

"No."

"What? I haven't asked you anything."

"Okay," said Brienne. She stood up to her full height and was very gratified to find she was slightly taller. "Go on and ask."

"Want to get coffee?"

"With you? No."  
His smile fell away. "Why the hell not? What do you have against me? We haven't spoken since ..."

"Exactly. We haven't spoken in, like, years. Why would you _want_ to talk to me? And," she said, "why would I want to talk to you? Why would I trust you?"

He was grim now, stiff and tense. "This is about Aerys, isn't it?"

"I know what you did."

"No," he said. "You don't." And he visibly stopped himself -- took a deep breath, as if even that were too much -- and ran a hand through his hair. The movement displayed a long line of skin from shoulder to waist. "Fine," he said. "I won't bother you again. Sorry."

"Wait," said Brienne: but her throat was dry and her voice came out in a strange, strangled gasp, and it was long after he had left the natatorium, because she had seen -- 

  
*

  
_Jaime Lannister is my soulmate._

She tried saying it to herself at odd times of the day. Eating breakfast _(milk and cereal and Jaime is my soulmate that is impossible I need to find a spoon, why are all the spoons dirty every single morning, why are people so inconsiderate)_

and in the mirror after a shower, picking at the dry skin on her forehead: _Probably Jaime Lannister has never experienced a physical imperfection in his life how is he my soulmate how it doesn't make sense it doesn't make any fucking sense_

and alone in her own bed late at night, half-asleep with the peace after orgasm, thinking of the mark high on her thigh, the matching mark along his ribcage, hidden by his arm even when in a bathing suit except during that one moment of frustration. _You don't know what I did._

She _didn't_ know.

She didn't know anything, anymore.

  
*

Three weeks later and now Brienne couldn't take the questions she hadn't ever asked -- so she went to the pool and found him there, writing down times in a pretentious little leather notebook, like normal people took leather notebooks to a swimming pool, like normal people worried about their lap times, like normal people dared to look like him -- and said, accusingly: "Coffee."

Jaime kept writing -- well, no. He kept his head down and pretended to write.

He said "I thought you didn't trust me."

"Call it a truce."

"You need trust to make a truce," said Jaime. His voice was soft, keeping this to themselves, even in the cavernous room where any sounds magnified and echoed.

"I trust you," said Brienne: and she found that she did.

The smell of chlorine curled around them like a fog.

He lifted his head at that and she could see that below the notes of dates and numbers and times, he'd drawn a spiral with thick, heavy strokes. "What changed?"

"We can talk about it," said Brienne, "over coffee."


	2. Chapter 2

Jaime paid for them both (Americano for him, flat white for her) and sat down across from her, both hands around the low, squat mug, watching her closely. "So," he said.

"So," she said: and found there was nothing more for her to talk about, or at least nothing else to say.

Her mouth was dry. She took a sip and burned her tongue.

"What changed your mind?" he said.

She shrugged.

“Have you told anyone?” he said.

The seatback was uncomfortable, too low against her shoulders to give any support. She shifted, and their legs brushed beneath the table. Bare legs, skin to skin, they were dressed in shorts and tshirts — athlete’s clothes, not for fashion. Jaime’s face took care of the rest of that for him, and she was too ugly to bother with pretending. “Have I — about what?”

“Us.”

“What do you --"

“Brienne,” he said. “Do me the honor of assuming I’m not an idiot, no matter how I look, and I’ll do the same for you.”

Heat crawled up her face; she had the very strong urge to upend his coffee in his lap. _Not so pretty now_ , she’d say, while he yelled. She said: “How long have you known?”

“Nine years, seven months, fourteen days and three — no,” laughing at her, he was laughing at her again — “I don’t know how long. I was — what, ten? Eleven? I remember seeing it, though. Seeing you. It felt like ...” He rubbed his chin.

Brienne said, “You kept staring at me.”

“Sorry.” Jaime did not sound contrite.

If he was going to be a dick about things, she would be too. Worldly. She would be _worldly,_ knowing and urbane. She said: “Did you kill Aerys?”

“Yep”

— and then his hand was on her arm, preventing her from rising in the same way that a patch of rain keeps you from going out for a walk. It made something in her stomach flip and tighten. He said “Brienne. Don't -- don't be like this. I want us to get along."

“I don’t even know you. Before this, we exchanged maybe fifteen words ever. And you had a decade to come to terms. I’ve had — what — a week.”

“Cry me a fucking river, Tarth. You think it’s easy being a teenage kid matched with the whale on the swim team? You think I liked knowing there wasn’t any use in dating anyone, because you were waiting? You think I liked losing my —“ He stopped.

“Oh no, go on. You’re doing so beautifully.”

“My first girlfriend thought we were soulmates. She had a ... a similar mark, and ...”

“And you didn’t tell her?”

“I didn’t _know!_ Not for sure.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

“I loved her,” he said, low and vehement. “I hadn’t seen you in years and I wasn’t sure of what I’d seen that day and I didn’t want to be with some stranger, don’t you understand that? _I loved her.”_

“So go back to her,” she said. “Have fun. Forget me.”

He didn’t answer.

“I don’t like you,” she said, “and I can’t make myself leave this table. I trust you, and I don’t want to do it. You touch me and I --"

She stopped.

He smiled, not kindly. “Are you a virgin?”

“No. Are you?”

Unbelieveably, he looked soft — almost tender. Almost wistful. “No. Why didn’t you tell someone?”

That she had found him. That it was Jaime. That she was bound with violent permanence to someone she’d spent most of her life sort of hating. “I don’t think that conversation would go well.” Her hands were shaking and she wrapped them around her legs, to keep them in place, to keep from touching him. Did you ever tell her? she wanted to say. Did your girlfriend ever find out?

He said, “Will you come home with me if I ask?”

“No.” No. Definitely not. No matter what the heat between her legs said about restrooms and door locks and how they were exactly the right height to have it against the wall. _You could take me from behind_ her hips said, her legs opening a little and pushing against his legs. _I’ll hold on to the sink._ Porcelain cold under her sweaty palm, his hand fumbling for her clit. It wouldn’t take very long for either one of them.

“What if I kiss you?”

“What,” she was saying: but his mouth was on hers, soft and dry, kissing over and over with the lightest pressure; she could pull away if she wanted, she could push him to the ground — and she ccould pull him closer, sliding her hand around that neck, into his hair, clenching. Everywhere they touched were sparks; everywhere he kissed seemed to be reacting, opening, suddenly and painfully alive.

Jaime pulled away. He wasn’t smiling.

“What the fuck do I do with this?”

“Start by believing yourself that I’m not going to eat you alive. And then," he said, "come home with me."

Brienne pressed her hands into the bench seat. She hadn't ever done that, hadn't especially ever wanted to do that until she saw his body passing through the water in a long line of freestyle, turning at the wall and doing it again, turning at the wall and doing it again, turning and -- "Yeah," she said. "Let's go."


End file.
